


A Powerful Ally

by senator_mon_mothma



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 11:59:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17559989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/senator_mon_mothma/pseuds/senator_mon_mothma
Summary: Three times Leia feels the Force as a child.





	A Powerful Ally

Leia is five, and Bail comes home to Alderaan and finds her lying on the floor in the corner of Breha's office, drawing. She shows the picture off to him the moment he enters the room: a wavy blue line with colorful fish beneath, and in the sky above -

“Why are there two suns?” Bail asks, trying to sound casual. Across the room, Breha's head snaps up from the datapad she is reading so fast she nearly drops it.

“Because that's the way it's s'posta be,” Leia says nonchalantly.

Bail and Breha exchange a worried look.

“Maybe she saw a holo,” Breha says later, sounding unconvinced. “If we don't make a big deal out of it -”

But two weeks later, when Bail next returns home, Breha greets him with a whole stack of drawings. A girl picking flowers, a ship, a jagged line that he assumes is supposed to represent the mountainous view from the palace, and each one with two circles, one yellow and one orange.

That night, Bail tucks Leia into bed and sits on the edge of her bed for a bedtime story.

“Tell me a story about the boy in the sand.”

“The boy in the sand?”

Leia nods firmly and provides no clarification. Bail doesn't know what else to do besides tell the story and make it as mundane as he can.

“Once there was a little boy who liked to play in the sand. He would build sandcastles, and bury his feet in the sand, and run around chasing after birds.”

“There are no birds,” Leia interrupts.

“Oh?”

“Not where the boy is.”

“If you say so. One day, the boy decided that he wanted to dig the deepest hole that he could.” Leia looks thoughtful, as if deciding if that is something the boy would do, then nods in acceptance. “So he started digging and digging. He dug with his hands, and then when they started getting tired, he dug with a shovel. He dug all day long, and made a hole so deep that he couldn't get out of it. He sat there in the bottom of the hole, wondering what he was going to do, until the sun set.”

Bail hesitates a moment, certain that Leia is going to tell him there are two suns, but she seems willing to let him get away with it.

“He curled up in the bottom of the hole to go to sleep. And in the middle of the night, it started to rain.” 

“It doesn't rain where the boy is. There isn't any water.”

“Who's telling this story?” Bail asks jokingly, trying to cover up his growing alarm.

“You have to tell it right.”

“Leia,” says Bail, deciding that he has to put a stop to this before the wrong person hears her talk about the boy, “how do you know so much about this boy?”

“I dreamed it,” she says.

“You know that dreams aren't always real, right? Sometimes it's just your head telling you a story.”

“The boy is real,” Leia says stubbornly. And Bail gives up.

But the next time he's on Alderaan, Leia's drawings have only one sun, and she asks for her favorite story about the pitten who was looking for its mother. If she still dreams about the boy in the sand, she doesn't talk about it.

\----

Leia is nine, and she sits beside Bail in the back of a speeder. Breha is in the one ahead of them with the newly elected president of the planet they are visiting, a progressive man by the standards of this corner of the galaxy who Breha has high hopes for. It's the closest Bail ever gets to a vacation; he is here only as Breha's husband, free to spend the days exploring the city with Leia while Breha sits in stuffy meetings.

It's been a long day of museums, and Leia rests her head against the speeder window as they are driven back to the president's home, where they are staying.

Suddenly Leia sits up, looking confused. She stares at a spot in space for a long moment, lost in bewildered thought. “Wait,” she whispers to herself, brow creased.

Reflexes that have lain dormant since the Clone Wars mean that Bail has shoved her to the floor of the speeder and shielded her with his own body before he even consciously hears the explosion. For a long, disorienting second he can't tell which way is up, then the speeder hits the ground hard.

He has time to check that Leia, eyes wide and fearful, is not seriously hurt before the Alderaanian guards reach him. Their voices sound distorted and distant, like they've traveled across the galaxy through a poor comm system, as they herd him, Leia clutched to his chest, to a sheltered alcove.

Only then does Bail spot the smoking remains of Breha's speeder.

It is two days before they are certain that Breha will survive, and many more before he has a chance to think of anything other than surgeries and bacta treatments.

The new president was killed in the blast, and the Imperial investigation concludes that he was targeted by one of the many groups on his planet that hated him, that Breha was just collateral damage. No one ever claims credit for the attack, though, and while Bail never voices his own skepticism, he can tell Breha believes the story no more than he does. She had given a speech just weeks before the attack that rather unsubtly condemned Imperial enslavement of non-humans, and Bail is certain that she was the real target, that the attack was retaliation or a warning.

Figuring she has more than enough to worry about, Bail never tells Breha about Leia's behavior in the moments before the explosion, and Leia never mentions it.

\----

Leia is thirteen, and an Imperial intelligence officer comes to visit Alderaan. Bail has heard, through a convoluted string of contacts, that the man wants to defect and has valuable information to share with the Alliance.

After the formal welcome, while the officer is in the guest quarters changing for dinner, Leia pulls Bail aside.

“I don't like him,” she whispers.

“Why not?”

Leia seems to struggle for words for a moment, visibly suppressing frustration. “Just a feeling.”

At dinner, the Imperial tries to start the familiar dance of trying to establish shared treason without either party ever leaving itself too vulnerable, but Bail never takes the bait. The Imperial leaves the next day, looking slightly disappointed.

“It was just a feeling!” Leia protests to Bail, seeming horrified that her confession had led to them not getting whatever secrets the man had been ready to share.

“Those kinds of instincts can be very valuable. Often, gut feelings are your mind telling you something that your conscious self missed. That doesn't mean you should blindly trust them, but you should pay attention to them and try to figure out where they come from.” But Leia doesn't look reassured. “I didn't trust him either,” Bail lies, to spare her the responsibility.

Three years later, the Imperial officer receives a well-publicized promotion for uncovering a rebel cell and leading to the death or capture of dozens of anti-Imperial fighters. It's awful, but it's not one of theirs, and Bail knows that without Leia's instincts it would have been an Alliance cell, if not the entire Alliance.

She does not find the knowledge as comforting. “I knew something was wrong,” she says desperately. “If I'd done more, maybe all those people wouldn't have died.”

“You're not all-powerful, Leia,” Bail says, unconsciously echoing Padme's words of nearly twenty years previously. “You can't save everyone.”

“Not everyone, no,” Leia says. “But maybe I could have saved _more _.”__


End file.
